Articles and Tutorials: Articles and TutorialsArticles and Tutorials: Articles and TutorialsenThe One Sound All Games Need and How To Use Ithttps://www.gamedev.net/articles/audio/the-one-sound-all-games-need-and-how-to-use-it-r5168/

Immersion in games is all about making the brain of the player believe – at least in some amount – that she or he is there.

We sound designers, have a couple of basic tricks up our sleeves, to create that exact effect in the listener’s brain.

One of those tricks is a basic noise drone, that carries the identity of the place that the action takes place. Audio engineers and sound designers in films, refer to it as the “roomtone” and it is also know as the “presence”.

We, at SoundFellas Immersive Audio Labs, like to call that type of sound the “noise print”. The “noise” part of the name comes from the fact that this kind of sound is categorized as noise. And the “print” part of the name relates to the indentation or mark made on a surface or soft substance, like with a fingerprint. Hence, noise print.

I find that part of any soundscape very important, that is why I regularly extract the noise prints from any environmental recording I capture for my ambience libraries, and I include those extracted loops as isolated/separate sound files. To do that I use specialized techniques and tools, usually used in forensic audio analysis. Those technologies combined with specific techniques allow me to extract only the frequencies that give the identity of the place and nothing more or less.

If you do that, the soundscapes you are going to create for your game, will be very agile. Creators working in games or film, can use them in combination with the isolated sound effects that can also be extracted, to create a vibrant and dynamic soundscape for the players. In essence, the game developer can develop stochastic algorithms that play back noise prints and isolated sound effects together to render the environment’s sound dynamically according to the state of the game. Creators working in augmented, virtual or mixed reality experiences get great benefit from the agility this methodology offers, to create dynamic and life-like environments that blend with the real or virtual environments of their choosing.

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NOISE PRINTS (AKA ROOMTONES) ARE BASIC NOISE DRONES THAT CARRY THE IDENTITY OF THE PLACE THAT THE ACTION TAKES PLACE.

Is your player exploring a haunted castle at dusk or ready to take a lethal jump from a skyscraper to complete the mission? In which era is the action taking place? What time of day? Is there civilization near or it’s a post-apocalyptic setting? All this information can be delivered via the environmental noise print. - Image(s) by Alexander Andrews, Filip Mroz and R. H. Lee on Unsplash.

First a definition

But to unlock the full potential of the noise prints, to create an immersive atmosphere for your games, we must go a little further down the rabbit hole.

First, let’s look into a definition, Wikipedia offers a good one:

In filmmaking and television production, presence, also known as room tone, is the “silence” recorded at a location or space when no dialog is spoken. Presence is similar to ambience, but is distinguished by a lack of explicit background noise.

Every location has a distinct presence created by the position of the microphone in relation to the space boundaries. A microphone placed in two different parts of the same room will record two distinct presences. This is because of the unique spatial relationship between the microphone and boundaries such as walls, ceilings, and floors, and other objects in a room.

Presence is recorded during the production stage of filmmaking. It is used to help create the film sound track, where presence may be intercut with dialog to smooth out any sound edit points. The sound track “going dead” would be perceived by the audience not as silence, but as a failure of the sound system. - Excerpt from Wikipedia.

Different types of environments, have different noise prints. A cathedral, a laboratory, a forest, a big city experienced from the rooftops. A major part of the aesthetic is the noise print, also called roomtone or presence. - Image(s) by Michael D Beckwith, Stefan Kunze, Sergei Akulich and R. H. Lee on Unsplash.

Basic attributes

As we see, noise prints are very important parts of a good design. Actually, together with the reverberation (more on that in another article) carry most of the weight of creating immersion.

Anyone that played Limbo, Alan Wake, Mirror’s Edge, The Swapper, Metro: Last Light, Far Cry, SOMA, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Metroid Prime, Silent Hill, Doom and of course BioShock to name a few, experienced that deep immersion feeling I’m talking about. Those games utilize great use of different noise print loops to create the first layer of the environmental sound and signify the player of the location and point in the story’s timeline.

Let’s highlight the most important parts of the definition that we gave above.

It’s distinguished by a lack of explicit background noise.

That means that the noise print loop should not have any features that can be perceived as being something specific. Only the pure noise (random energy) should be included in this sound, to allow for the ambiguity that this kind of sound has in nature. Of course, if a noise print for example, represents an industrial production setting, it can have low frequency rumbling coming from the machines. But it shouldn’t contain and pattern of repeatable sounds that gives out specific behaviors of the machines, like the pumping of a molding press or the air release of a pneumatic robot arm. Those sounds can be played back on top of the noise prints and given randomization sound properties and 3D location within the game’s world, to simulate better the environment and its behaviors and to create a dynamic soundscape for the player to immerse in.

Every location has a distinct sound, it’s like a fingerprint.

Not only you should not use the same noise print for each type of environment, but also probably change it as the time of day changes in the environment you create. Of course you could utilize using the same noise print for specific or similar environments within your game, as a way to mentally tag those environments and put them under the same family. That creates a good atmosphere that also works like a user interface element. Informing the player that ‘now you are in that kind of place’. Very powerful if you classify your game’s locations right. A good idea further down this methodology, is to group your game’s locations according to the narrative of your game.

Digital (complete) silence is going to be perceived by the audience as failure of the sound system.

Or even worse, failure of the creators to produce a quality product. A safety rule is that your executable should be engineered to ensure that a noise print will always playback no matter what happens. Even in states that only music would suffice, playing the noise print of the level that is loading, or a generic noise print that sets the mood of the game, will bind the music even more with the atmosphere of the game and the emotional side of your game’s story. It will make music stronger for the player. Furthermore, if the sound stops completely in some point, usually on loading levels, loaders, menus, etc. The player will start noticing the sounds from her own room, the street noise from outside of the room, the air-condition unit, the computer’s fans cooling the processors, and many other noises that take away her brain from the world of the game and pulls it back in the real world. Very uncool.

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NOISE PRINTS TOGETHER WITH THE REVERBERATION CARRY MOST OF THE WEIGHT OF CREATING IMMERSION.

Best practices

OK great, we got a good handle on what kind of sounds the noise prints are. As promised from the article’s title, here are the basic tips on how to use them in order to get the most of them, brought to you directly from the SoundFellas internal knowledge-base.

Combine them with the reverberation

Use them with reverb. That will glue them with the rest of the sounds that pass through the same reverb, which creates a psychological bond of the location and the player, making a part of the player’s mind believe that it is located at that place. If you have locations in your game that can be categorized in specific types of environments (For example, some of the rooms belong to an industrial setting and some of the rooms belong to a vast forest), you can filter the same noise print with different reverberation settings, relative to the material properties of each of your game’s rooms. That way, all rooms that share the same setting use the same noise print but have different reverb. Using this technique you can create variation throughout your game’s rooms and location sets, but with consistency between them, increasing the perceived quality of your game’s atmosphere.

Smoothly transition between noise prints

Use a scripted mechanic to cross-fade between them when the player is changing between distinctive locations. You can get the distance between the 2 location clear limits and the position of the player character in your game, and transform those numbers to a percentage of how much to lower the volume of each noise print’s loop, according to the position of the player’s character. That way you provide smooth transitions between the locations the player character is moving. Be careful, if the noise prints are very similar, during same volume levels flanging may appear. To avoid it, test your level’s transitions in a good listening environment or with a set of headphones.

Use specified loudness levels

Keep the loudness level true for all noise prints, unless you are intentionally going for some creative sound design. Yes, a forest’s noise print played back louder that it should could be perceive like a broken refrigerator or a metal construction site and vice-versa. Of course, if you feel adventurous, you can try using various noise print in different volume levels, to dress-up locations in your game’s world and listen to the result. A little random experimentation never hurt any designer, it’s actually a recommended practice for discovering new experiences. A quick advice, be cautious when raising the volume level as it can introduce clipping distortion (a nasty noise) even when the audio meter shows a signal level below zero. Also don’t forget that sound mixing eventually works in an additive way, adding signals together. So the end result of your game’s sound is the sum of all signals that play back together. A good practice is to always check the final audio bus of the framework’s mixing system for good volume levels.

Never stop never-stopping

Use the noise prints sound even in the loading screens, as a way to introduce the next level/room, or use a specific noise print that sets the mood for all the game. Even better, create an application-wide fallback algorithm that fades in a specific noise print every time that the game has no sound at all or the state machine loads utility screens like menus, credits, network settings, etc. To do that, you should check out the documentation of the game development framework you use, in order to find out if it supports sound instances that are not destroyed during scene/level loading.

Classify, organize and rule them all

Group them differently to create consistency and empower the emotional aspect of the game. Some taxonomy ideas include but are not limited to:

Open, closed and special spaces.

Kind of environment, urban, industrial, natural, unnatural.

Day or night.

Friendly and hostile environments.

Game states.

Story-line position.

You get the idea. 😉

Conclusion

I think that we can all agree, that the subject of noise print usage in games is a very interesting one, and I would urge you to experiment with it and see by yourself what it can bring to your game’s aesthetics.

You could combine, create your own, and develop an algorithm that switches between the roomtones according to tags that flow back from the game logic, or even mix 2 or 3 roomtones according to what combination of location types and game states. That can create very strong immersion not only for the virtual location, but also used as a subconscious way of guiding your story.

So, what do you think about noise prints? Are you using them in your games? Do you have any experience to share by implementing noise prints in your game's code? Any ideas you like to share?

Write in the comments below, I'll be very happy to discuss with the vibrant community of game developers!

So you're a filmmaker entering post-production on your film, a game developer working on music and audio triggers or perhaps a YouTuber wanting to enhance your videos. You need SFX and a music soundtrack but you might not have the budget to hire a professional composer or audio engineer.

The question is: Can you still have a great commercial soundtrack and great SFX for your project utilizing only free resources?

Definitely.

Quick story about why I am writing this article:

My career is in electronic music production, but I also love game design and have always wanted to create my own video game, so 2 years ago I decided to produce my first interactivehorror visual novel.

I was designing everything in-house: music, SFX, graphics, writing, everything. Many of you reading this are probably quite similar to me and are doing most of the work for your project yourself.

I could handle the music, the writing, and the code, but there was no avoiding the obvious fact that I was terrible at drawing and I did not have the field-recording equipment necessary to record my own sound effects.

I also did not have the budget to hire an audio engineer or an artist to provide me with SFX and the artwork needed for the game, so I had a dilemma.

How do I immerse the player in my story without quality sound effects, artwork, and no budget to pay for them?

Well, I did what I always do when I have a problem that seems impossible to overcome:

I asked the internet.

I spent days researching online and long story short I found dozens of websites providing free commercially-usable resources for my project.

And imagine my surprise when a few of these free resources...didn't suck! Not only did I end up finishing my game without spending a penny, but I could still sell it!

So I got to thinking, what about filmmakers, game developers, and YouTubers who already have great video and artwork but need great music and SFX? Are there equally-powerful free music libraries out there to search and download from?

I did my research and once again found some incredible resources that I am going to share with you now!

And not just that, but I'm going to help you incorporate and edit these free resources so they don't sound like you just downloaded them off random websites online.

Here's what we are going to cover:

Where to obtain free, commercially usable music & SFX for your project without sacrificing the quality of your end-product

How to edit music and SFX you downloaded from widely different sources to create a unified soundtrack that works with your project

How to create loops, fade-ins, fade-outs and layer audio to immerse the audience

Licensing, what it means and what restrictions you have when using these resources (not many, I promise)

How to change the format of your audio to work with your software

Where to find volunteers or paid professionals if you can't find what you need

So without boring you to death, let's get started with the best 9 websites to download free, commercially-usable music & SFX!

As I said before, I have been producing electronic music for over 14 years now, 5 years of which it has been my primary source of income. So I wanted to put together my own free resource for others to benefit from! These are some of my absolute best soundtracks, many of which are loopable. And I spent many days organizing them by category and mood to make it easier for you to find what you're looking for! And the best thing is, all of the tracks can be listened to without even leaving the page and can be easily downloaded in 1 click!

Don’t be fooled by this company’s origin: They started off as graphic designers who made icons, thus Icons8. But they have evolved and got their hands on a rather large music library of various artists who have been curated by their team. Naturally, when a library is curated, it is subjective and therefore might not be to your tastes if you disagree with how they select their tracks for inclusion on their website, but it can’t hurt to take a look at their gallery since it is so incredibly well-sorted!

Incompetech has been around for quite some time and is recommended by many other bloggers because it provides a convenient category system. Unfortunately, the tracks are not organized by mood or tonal characteristics other than genre, so you will find tracks with the instruments you are looking for, but it may take some digging to find the appropriate mood you are looking for.

Unfortunately dig cc mixter, though a MASSIVE resource with tons of great tracks, is not a great place to find music in the specific genre you are looking for as there are no categories and no search functions to speak of. If you are willing to spend the time looking through thousands of tracks though, you will find a few hidden gems on here that will fit perfectly in your project!

The best part about Josh Woodward’s free commercially usable library is that he has tagged each and every song with different moods, themes, and styles to make it very easy for Filmmakers, Game Developers & Artists to search through tracks to find songs in the mood they are looking for!

This library is more of a last resort as the tracks are unsorted and not as high quality as others on this list, however free is free and these tracks would be suitable for app developers or creators who are looking for this type of sound.

TOP 3 FREE COMMERCIALLY USABLE SFX LIBRARIES:

ZapSplat is by far my favorite free SFX resource. When I first discovered their website it had far fewer audio files and a much less appealing logo design. It appears they are dedicated to growth because they have completely redesigned their branding and added thousands of audio clips to their website! I personally used this resource in the development of my Horror Visual Novel titled “The Watchers.”

Videvo is primarily a stock video provider with many free video clips, but they are also breaking into sound as well and have an expanding library of 440 clips which isn’t much but they are very well sorted so it should be easy to find something unique for your project. Make sure you check their licensing page as their licensing is quite complex compared to other websites.

In the above 9 websites, you should be able to obtain all of the sound effects and music for your project as long as you are willing to put in the time filtering and searching through these libraries to find what you are looking for.

It may seem like a daunting task, but I have done it personally myself in my game development and have had great success!

My suggestion to you is download anything that sounds interesting to you at the time, even if you are unsure if you can use it in your project or not, and copy-paste the license information into a .txt file so you don’t forget to give proper attribution.

Part 2: How to Choose the Right Music & SFX for Each Scene, and How to Edit Audio to Achieve Your Goals

Once you have a selection of songs or SFX for your project it's time to edit. Since most of you will be using many different types of software I am only going to cover how to edit music in 3rd party FREE software, namely Audacity.

Don't knock it, Audacity is very powerful software and unless you're considering a career in audio engineering, music production, sound design or mixing, this is probably the only tool you'll ever need.

If you want more professional audio editing tools I highly suggest iZotope's RX6 software as it allows you to do incredible things such as take backgrounds out of one scene and move them into another, repair poor recordings and dubbing, and more.

How to loop music that wasn't originally recorded as a loop:

To achieve this the easiest method is to create a soft fade-in and fade-out on the track. You can experiment with different values but 1-2 seconds on each end usually suffices unless the music is louder or more complex, then you can try up to 4 seconds on each end or even more for atmospheric loops.

How to make everything sound cohesive, as if everything was designed specifically for your project:

Keep in mind, layering audio is an incredibly easy, yet very powerful tool at your disposal. You can loop one audio track while another one continues to play underneath it to keep the player from noticing the loop. You can even create elaborate scenes with chattering people, blowing wind, ambient tones, and musical accompaniment.

All of these types of atmospheres can be downloaded at the above free resources!

It is important to consider the stylistic and tonal changes of the music you downloaded when switching from one song to another. Don't just go from a percussive action track straight into a somber atmospheric melody.

Transitioning is key: utilize fade-ins and fade-outs during most, if not all of your audio changes so the experience draws the audience further into your story rather than taking their focus off the screen and into the audio.

Oh yeah, and...

Epic Music Does Not Make a Boring Scene More Epic!

I think there is a huge problem in the video game industry specifically (filmmakers don't scoff, it's a problem in your industry too, but perhaps less pronounced) where game developers think if they make the music louder and louder and more and more epic it will somehow make the game more fun or the experience more immersive.

Well, it doesn't.

Many times have I been playing through a game or watching a film where the audio is 10X more dramatic than what is happening on screen and it makes me just want to mute it or turn it down. This is not the experience you want to give your audience, trust me.

Consider the emotion of every scene before you place any music and ensure that listening to the music by itself gives you the feeling you want the player to have, but don't expect the music and sound effects to do the work for you on making the scene enjoyable and immersive!

Once you have a rough draft of your soundtrack & SFX library, go back to Step 1 and make SURE you didn’t miss any audio that may be in other categories you didn’t listen to that might fit the scenes you’re working on.

Part 3: Obtain the Appropriate License to Use the Music & SFX and Ensure You Have Given Proper Attribution

Whenever you’re working with royalty free music & SFX you always have to keep in mind that just because the music is free doesn’t mean you don’t have to cite the author.

If you willnot make money from your project directly or indirectly (this includes advertisements and YouTube monetization) then all you have to do is put “Music Downloaded From https://JordanWinslow.Me/RoyaltyFreeMusic” in your credits, description or somewhere easily visible in your project.

If you will make money from your project directly or indirectly, simply fill out the Commercial License Request Form found on the website and enter in the title of your project and your project’s information for EACH project you will require music for.

All of the sites I linked above have very similar licensing agreements, so just read up on the individual website before you download, and ensure you create a .txt document with all the links you need so you don’t forget!

The best part about all of the above libraries is that almost every song and SFX clip you download can be legally edited, looped, layered, remixed and changed any way you see fit!

The only restriction is you cannot sell or distribute your edited or remixed audio clips as standalone clips if they were your own because technically the author still retains copyright ownership over the files. But that does not mean you can't sell your film or video game with the edited audio!

If you are confused, double-check the licensing page on each website to be sure.

And that’s how you spend time instead of money to create a custom soundtrack for your film, video game or YouTube video!

What to Do if you Still Haven’t Found What You’re Looking For, or the Audio You Downloaded isn’t the Correct Format

If the audio you downloaded isn’t in the correct format for your software, you can use the free open source tool Audacity to convert it by using the "Export" menu to change the format of your audio or use this free online audio converter.

Keep in mind that certain audio formats like .mp3 have restrictions on where they can be used. I recommend .ogg since it is an open source audio format with great quality and compression.

Now if for some reason you don’t find the music or SFX you need in those libraries of thousands of songs and SFX, it’s probably time to consider looking for a volunteer composer or simply hiring a professional.

You can find low-cost audio engineers and composers on websites like Fiverr and Upwork, but keep in mind that quality products do not often come with low price tags, be wary of anything that seems "too good to be true" because it probably is.

And be sure to listen to their portfolio thoroughly before making a decision!

But I guarantee if you put the time into finding music and SFX in the above libraries, or looking for a great volunteer, you can get your project done at no cost other than the hardware and software you purchased!